


Cicatrices

by thegalrahobbitofplantetgalilfrey



Series: Breathe [6]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Dancing, Fluff, Gen, PTSD, Pain, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-11 14:14:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19929397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegalrahobbitofplantetgalilfrey/pseuds/thegalrahobbitofplantetgalilfrey
Summary: Or, in laymen's terms, scars. Allura notes some rather interesting ones while stitching up Keith's battle wounds.Keith doesn't want to talk about it.





	1. Stitches

**Author's Note:**

> Whelp, let's see if I can do someone ELSE'S viewpoint for once.

Allura looked back at her paladins as they limped into the medbay after her. “How bad is it?”

Hunk set Shiro down on a pod preparation table. “He needs a pod!”

Allura bit her lip. Shiro had taken a spear for her—of course, he probably hadn’t expected it to go through his shield like it wasn’t there, but the action was no less heroic for that. “Coran, get on that.” Her advisor nodded and began fitting Shiro into the podsuit. Allura turned back to the paladins. “Anyone else injured?”

“Keith is,” Pidge volunteered.

The red paladin was holding a hand to his side. Allura had seen him receive a swipe from a sword, but he’d continued fighting as normal, and she’d been preoccupied with Shiro. Keith took his hand away from the wound and gave it a lookover.

“Just a scratch,” he said dismissively, “I’ll take care of it.”

The paladins watched as Shiro was placed in the pod, and then Coran shooed them away, assuring them that they would be called when Shiro was ready. Allura looked up at the pod.

“He saved my life.”

“That’s Shiro for you,” Keith said, rummaging through a cabinet, “Always there, even when things go south.”

“I thought they wanted to be allies. To join us in the fight against Zarkon. It didn’t even cross my mind that it was a trap! I felt sure no one could stand with him.”

Keith stopped and looked back at her. “Princess. It’s not your fault.”

“Thank you, Keith.”

He nodded and winced as he twisted to the side, looking for something. “Where’s that goo?”

“Please refrain from calling our various healing salves ‘goo.’” Allura noted the small splash of red on the floor, and the slow drip of crimson down the white part of Keith’s leg armor. She pushed him gently from the cabinet and opened a different one, pulling out a cleaner, a number and a needle and thread. “You’re bleeding too much, anyway. It’ll just be washed away. Sit down.”

She pushed him to a table and made him sit, cutting at his flight suit with a pair of medical scissors. “It’s a shame to cut this up, but the Castle can make a new one.” She rolled up the flight suit, noting how he tensed, and gently dabbed at the cut skin underneath with a cleaning pad. She pressed a gauze pad to it to stem the bleeding, counting to ten before checking again.

“This is nasty.” Keith was utterly frozen, staring ahead, his muscles taught. “Calm down, Keith, I won’t hurt you.” Allura finished cleaning the wound and numbed the area, threading the needle and stitching up Keith’s gash with quick, neat movements. She spread some of a salve on it to stave off infection and speed up the healing process and smiled at him briskly. “All done. You can come back for painkillers if it starts bothering you, and if you think it might be infected, tell me or Coran right away.” She tapped a few thin scars on Keith’s abdomen that looked very nearly how his new wound would look when healed—except perhaps a bit neater. “Where’d these come from?”

Keith jerked away as she touched the scar and yanked his torn flight suit down to cover it. “None of your business,” he said harshly, then, “Thank you. For the stitches.”

He left immediately, sparing one look at Shiro’s pod and then practically bolting out of the room. Allura blinked, calling a robot to clean the blood off of the floor and off of the pod prep. “What was that about?”

“From what I’ve surmised, he’s had bad experiences on Earth,” Coran told her, “Perhaps those scars were a souvenir of those experiences.”

“Have you ever seen them before?”

“No. You might try asking the other paladins. They’ve known him longer. Shiro would be your best bet, of course, but I believe Pidge had closer dealings with him as well?”

“That’s a good idea, Coran. Thank you. Will you call when Shiro’s almost out? I never thanked him for saving my life.”

“Of course, Princess.”

“Thank you.”

Allura headed for the door, bumping into Keith on her way out, now dressed in his Earth clothes. “Oh! I—Keith, I’d like to apologize. For prying. It wasn’t my place, and I should not have invaded your privacy.”

He blinked, as if trying to decipher what she’d said. She supposed she might have been a touch formal. “Oh. Yeah. Okay. Sure. And, uh, I’m sorry for snapping at you.”

“Do not trouble yourself about it. It is… how did Lance say it, sky under the lion?”

“Yeah, what does that _mean_?”

“I believe it is a parody of your Earth saying, ah, water under the bridge.”

“Oh. Okay. ‘Scuse me.” He squeezed past her and parked himself outside of Shiro’s stasis pod.

Allura smiled to herself as she tapped down the hallways. He was a loyal one, the red paladin. She was glad he was on their side. It made her feel a little guilty about going behind his back and asking about his scars—especially since she’d just apologized for prying—but her curiosity had the better of her. She didn’t like it when people kept secrets from her.

The first paladin she ran into was Lance, and she smiled at him. “Lance, do you have a moment?”

He grinned back. “Absolutely, Princess.”

“I was wondering about Keith. Do you know why he has scars?”

Lance’s grin faded. “Oh… yeah, Keith got in a pretty bad fire back on Earth. He was in the hospital for a bit because of all the problems from smoke inhalation and burns and stuff. I suppose that would have left scars, but I think he’s kind of touchy about it. Never wore short sleeves, even in the summer, you know?”

“Short sleeves?”

“Yeah, and I don’t think I’ve seen him without those stupid fingerless gloves since the fire either.”

“Gloves?”

“Yeah, he got burned all up his arms and hands. On his face, too. He came to class wrapped up like a mummy.”

“A _what_?”

“A mummy. It’s an Earth thing. They’re covered in bandages. Don’t worry about it. Let me guess; you asked about it, and he got twitchy and snappy.”

“Yes,” Allura admitted.

“Don’t worry about it. Lots of people are touchy about scars, especially if they’re ugly and not kind of cool like Shiro’s.

Allura gave him another smile. “Thank you, Lance.”

“No problem, Allura. Happy to help. Anything else you needed?”

“Yes, actually. Do you know where Pidge is?”

“Holed up in her room, probably. Or down in the green lion’s hangar.”

“Thank you.”

Allura made her way to the hangar. Those scars hadn’t been burn scars. They’d been made by a knife, possibly a surgical one due to how neat and straight the lines had been. Allura put a hand to her own stomach, imagining what it would be like to have a blade cut across her own skin. She shuddered and opened the door to the hangar. Pidge was inside, typing away at her computer.

“Pidge, do you have a moment?”

“Sure, just a sec.” Pidge finished whatever she was doing and closed the laptop. “Working on making the invisibility cloak spread to all of Voltron. That way it’s not just my lion that gets used for stealth: we can fly Voltron in.”

“Ah. Excellent. Well. I was wondering… do you know about Keith’s scars?”

“What, his burn scars? On his arms?”

“No, there are a few scars right here.” Allura indicated on her own stomach. “They look like knife scars. I was thinking perhaps you might know, since you knew him fairly well on Earth?”

But Pidge was already shaking her head. “I don’t, sorry. And Shiro probably won’t either, because he wouldn’t have been there. I can’t think of—well, I can think of one person who might, _maybe_ know, but he’s back on Earth, and I can’t say for sure that Keith told him, or even that he’s seen the scars.”

“And what happened on Earth…?”

“I haven’t got a clue. Well—I know some things. He was starved. Kept in a really cold room. And there was this thing that James told me about… it was like a shock collar. It kind of messed up his head. Made him have trouble remembering faces.”

Allura stared at her in horror. “And other humans did this to him?”

Pidge looked down at her feet. “Yeah,” she said hoarsely, “One of the Garrison members. She, ah—she was convinced that she was protecting Earth.”

“By harming one of its citizens?!”

“Well, they figured out that Keith was, y’know. Not completely human. And she thought maybe she could figure out more about Keith’s other race. Not that it made anything she did okay, but just—that’s how she justified herself.” Pidge cleared her throat. “Anyway. He… doesn’t like talking about it. He tries to forget about it, I think. But if from anywhere… that’s when any scars would have happened. So. Uh. Just don’t poke him about it. Please.”

“I won’t. Thank you, Pidge. For sharing that with me. It can’t have been easy on you, since you were his friend.”

Pidge blinked rapidly. “No. It wasn’t. I—I helped him get away, I saw some footage of what happened, but… I didn’t want to keep watching. I… I might still be able to access the footage. If you really want to know.”

Allura put a hand on the younger girl’s shoulder. “No. I don’t want to dig it up if Keith wants to keep it hidden. It’s his secret to tell.”

Coran’s voice came through the speakers. “Shiro will be done any dobash now, you can all head on over.”

Pidge and Allura walked together, joining up with Lance and Hunk on the way. Keith, of course, was already there, in his usual arms-crossed position.

The pod beeped and Shiro took a wobbly step out, doing a confused headcount. “Everyone got out?”

Allura smiled at him. “Yes, thanks to you. I would have been grievously injured if it weren’t for you. Thank you, Shiro.”

He smiled back, doing another quick scan. “Anyone else injured?”

“Keith got sliced,” Hunk volunteered.

“I’m fine now,” Keith assured Shiro as his face creased with worry, “Allura stitched me up.”

The wheels in Allura’s head started turning. Pidge had said that Shiro wouldn’t know about Keith’s scars because he hadn’t been there, but maybe Keith had told him. The two were close. It would make sense for Keith to have told Shiro but no one else.

She needed to talk to Shiro.

Xxx

Allura cornered Shiro as he made an inspection around the Castle. He did that, sometimes, making sure there were no stowaways or malfunctioning devices that indicated any remaining Galra crystal in the Castle systems. She trotted alongside him as he made his rounds.

“I want to talk to you about Keith.”

“Has he done something wrong?”

“No, I—” suspicion flared in Allura’s mind. “Why? Do you know something I don’t?”

“No. Old habits die hard, I suppose.”

“What? Why?”

A faint smile crossed his lips. “He got into trouble a few times at the Garrison. Normally if someone came to me wanting to talk about Keith it was because he’d started a fight.”

“That certainly sounds like Keith. But that wasn’t what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to ask if he’s told you anything… traumatic, I suppose. Anything that might have left him with physical scars.”

“He was in a pretty bad fire. There was some scarring there.”

“Yes, I know, but I thought… something else, perhaps?”

“No. Why?”

Allura hesitated, deciding how best to proceed. “When I was stitching him up… I noticed some scars, blade scars. I thought… perhaps you might know where they came from?”

Shiro shook his head. “I’ve never seen them. And he’s never talked to me about them.”

“And he’s never said anything about… I don’t know, anything that could have left scars?” Allura sensed that she was moving into dangerous territory. Shiro’s face closed up a little, became more guarded.

“Keith went through a lot on Earth.”

“I know. Pidge said much the same.”

“He… has trouble sleeping sometimes,” Shiro admitted.

“We have sleeping aids in the med bay; if he needs them he’s always welcome to—”

“No,” Shiro cut her off, “Thank you, Princess, that’s very kind of you, but his problem isn’t something that medicine can fix.”

Allura kept pace beside him, waiting quietly, not pushing.

Finally, Shiro sighed, staring out down the hallway at a distant thing only he could see. “He gets nightmares. It’s hard on him. They scare him enough that he doesn’t want to go back to sleep. And… stars, I shouldn’t be telling you this. I should have asked Keith first. It’s not really something that he wants getting spread around, you know?”

“It won’t spread any farther than me,” Allura promised, “I wouldn’t betray his secrets.”

“I think he needs someone to talk to. I mean—he’s talking to me about it, but he needs someone other than me, someone who isn’t also his leader, someone who hasn’t known him since he was a child.”

“Have you told him that?”

“No. I’ve only just gotten him to open up to me, and I don’t want to push him away. When he’s ready, he’ll talk to someone else. Pidge, maybe. Possibly even Hunk.”

“But not Lance?” Allura suggested, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

Shiro laughed. “Never Lance.”

Allura laughed as well, and a small buzz sounded. “Ah. The bed bell, as the other paladins call it. Time for rest.”

“You go ahead. I’ll be along as soon as I finish this inspection.”

“Shiro, you were stabbed today, and the healing process can drain you. Go and get some sleep. I’ll finish your perimeter.”

Shiro hesitated. “But…”

“Shiro, no one wants to protect this castle more than I.”

“Yes, of course. You’re right. Thank you, Princess.”

“Goodnight, Shiro.”

“Goodnight, Allura.”

Shiro went his separate way, and Allura continued on, listening as the Castle’s inhabitants went to sleep. The Castle fell silent, the only sounds her shoes clicking down the hallway, her dress swishing gently and the Castle’s quiet whirring.

Allura let out a deep sigh of contentment as she finished the inspection in the main entry hall and kicked off her shoes, putting her bare feet on the Castle floor and feeling its hum. She hummed along to the music that only she could hear, dancing the steps of an Altean dance (meant for partners, but she would have to dance alone) that was lost to time, a dance that her father had taught her.

Left, right, gentle spin, then a spin the other direction. Right, right, left…

Allura faltered. This had been the part of the dance where the stronger partner would lift up the other and throw them into the air, catch them, and continue the dance. She waited a few beats of the Castle’s steady music and jumped, landing as she would have had she been thrown and immediately going into another spin. She accidentally stepped on the hem of her dress, and it tore with a ripping sound that cut off the magic of the Castle’s hum. She landed hard and blinked in startled surprise.

Allura picked up the ripped part of her dress. “Oh!”

She started to cry. She didn’t want to, she hadn’t meant to, but ripping her dress was the last straw. She had been holding it all in, keeping herself strong for her paladins, pretending that she was fine, that she’d moved on after finding out what had happened to Altea, but she wasn’t. She’d lost her people, and she’d lost her father twice, and now, on top of it all, she’d ruined her dress, which was such a small thing, but it seemed so very big.

As abruptly as she’d started, Allura stopped crying, wiping the tears from her eyes and picking herself up off of the ground. She started to slip on her shoes, then stopped with a frown, wiggling her bare toes on the hard floor. Something had changed in the humming of the Castle. The tone had only changed ever so slightly, but it was there. The Castle’s systems had shifted to accommodate the environment as necessary to support an awake being.

Allura’s blood chilled.

There was someone—or something—moving in the Castle.


	2. Midnight Walks and Midnight Talks

Allura crept through the Castle, looking for the intruder, clutching her shoe like a weapon. She’d kept the lights off so that he wouldn’t know she was coming, but she regretted not being able to see as she brushed a wall. The tiny shifts as she walked through the halls and the Castle pulled more oxygen to support both her and her prey warned her that she was getting closer, and then she saw a shape in the darkness. It turned, and Allura spotted glowing yellow eyes looking towards her.

“GALRA!” she shrieked, and threw her shoe right at one of those glowing eyes. It connected solidly, and the intruder yelped in pain, reeling back.

“Ow!”

Allura put her hand to her mouth. “Ohmystars, Keith, is that you?! Lights on!”

The Castle lights flared on at her command, and both she and the red paladin blinked in the sudden light. Keith was holding a hand to one eye, and Allura could see that the other one was its normal violet with white sclera. She must have imagined the glowing eyes—she’d been scared, was all. Keith’s mouth twisted into what was almost a smile, but was also a grimace of pain.

“You’ve got a good arm, Princess.”

“Oh! I’m so sorry! If I’d known it was you, I never would have… I’m sorry. Let me see.”

Allura gently pried his hand away from his eye and winced. The eye was already swollen shut and a deep purple-black color was blooming around the area and on his forehead. There was an imprint of the heel of her shoe square in the center of his eyelid, and she winced again.

“Can you see out of it?”

“Not much.”

Allura retrieved her shoe and slipped both shoes back on her feet. “I’m sorry, Keith. Come with me to the infirmary, and I’ll see what I can do.”

He followed her down the hallway, and mortification started to creep over Allura. She’d assaulted one of her own paladins! At least she’d been far enough away from the paladin’s rooms that no one had been woken by her scream only to find out that she’d panicked and thrown a shoe at Keith. Although Lance probably wouldn’t blame her, she thought wryly, and might even thank her for it. Nevertheless, no one came out to see what was wrong, and Allura was able to keep her embarrassment to herself.

The med bay door opened with a hiss, and Keith followed her through, still holding a hand to his eye.

“Just a tick.” Allura searched for something to help and eventually came out with a hot pack, an ice pack and some painkillers.

“Ice pack to take down the swelling and a hot pack to relax your muscles—hopefully that will make it easier to open. And these should help with the pain.”

Keith took them from her, swallowing the pills dry and holding the ice pack over his eye. “Thanks.”

Allura fidgeted. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

“Don’t worry about it. You reacted naturally. I should have said something when I saw you. I was just… surprised.”

“How could you see me? It was pitch black!”

Keith shrugged. “I’ve got good night vision.” They sat in awkward silence for a couple of moments before Keith spoke again. “What were you doing up?”

“Finishing Shiro’s inspection. I didn’t want him to overexert himself after his injury today. And what about you?”

Keith shifted uncomfortably. “Couldn’t sleep,” he said off-handedly.

“Bad dreams?”

Keith’s good eye blinked couple of times, obviously caught off-guard, and then nodded. “Yeah. I was just walking it off. Normally I talk to Shiro about it, but I didn’t want to bother him, not after what happened to him today.”

“You can talk to me.”

“Oh.” Keith’s ears started to burn red, something that Allura had never seen before. “Um. It was fine. Nothing. Just run of the mill nightmares.”

“Run of the mill nightmares?”

“People trying to kill me. Shiro wasn’t in it, thank the stars, but… it’s fine. I’m okay now.”

“You have nightmares about Shiro trying to kill you?”

Keith shrugged as if it weren’t a big deal, but his shoulders were tense. “Sometimes. What do _you_ have nightmares about?”

Allura hadn’t been expecting the question, and she blinked a couple of times as her mind tried to process what Keith had asked. “Oh. Me? Well. I—I don’t really have nightmares.”

“Uh-huh. Right. Okay.”

After a dobash, Allura sighed. Trust had to go both ways.

“Altea being destroyed. My father being killed by Zarkon. My mother crumbling to ash in front of my eyes. The juneberry fields burning. Zarkon capturing Voltron.” Allura gulped. “The Balmera dying underneath my feet. The Castle being overrun with Galra.”

Keith looked lost, faraway. “I’m sorry, Allura.”

Allura brushed a tear away. “They came nearly every night after the energy drain when I healed the Balmera, but not much anymore. I don’t have them often, maybe once every few phebes.”

“Once every few months?”

“Yes, not often. And what about your nightmares?”

Keith sucked in a deep breath and released it slowly. “I… I was pinned down to a table, and….” He breathed deeply again. “Uh. Well. They were trying to cut out my eyes.”

“They?”

“Admiral Sanda. She was back on Earth, she…”

“I know who she is. Pidge told me about her.”

“Okay. Well. Yeah. Um. So… yeah, that was pretty much it. Trying to cut out my eyes, and… um. There was electricity, she, uh, she kept poking me with this electric stick. And. Yeah.” Keith gulped. “So. Now you know.”

“Thank you, Keith. I know that couldn’t have been easy.”

“Well, I mean, when I was having the nightmare it seemed real, but when I woke up I knew that it was fake.”

“No, I meant for telling me. I know you value your privacy, and that… that’s a big thing to share. So, thank you.”

Keith ducked his head. “Oh. Sure. I figured it was only fair. I mean. Since you told me about your nightmares.”

“Oh! I didn’t tell you so that you would tell me yours, I just—I’m sorry if that’s the way you took it, I never meant it that way. I just… wanted to tell you.”

“Yeah. Okay. Well, so did I. Sort of. Kind of.” Keith fidgeted. “So. What do you do when you have your nightmares? To… not have them anymore.”

Allura sighed. “I used to go to the room where my father’s consciousness could speak to me. But since he’s gone… I take walks through the castle and I listen to the humming.”

“The humming?”

“Yes.” Allura slipped her foot out of her shoe and put it on the floor. “You try it. You can feel a humming under your foot.”

Keith hesitantly removed his boots and put his feet on the ground. His eyes widened. “It _does_ hum!”

“It does. It’s like the Castle’s pulse, and it just… it soothes me. So does dancing.” Allura felt her face heat up. She didn’t normally talk about the dancing. It was a little embarrassing. But she wanted Keith to trust her, to open up to her. To trust her the way that he trusted Shiro. She was the paladins’ leader as well, and as their leader, she needed to know that they could trust her.

“Like… the Macarena?”

“The what now?”

Keith’s face turned bright cherry red. “It’s an Earth dance. You can dance it alone, but most people do it in big groups together.”

“Oh, no, Altean dances are meant to be done with a partner. We value community, and being able to trust each other to lead through the dance, and to be strong enough to catch you if you fall.”

Keith tilted his head to the side. “Then how do you dance it alone?”

Allura looked at the ground. “I act as though I have a partner, but…” she sheepishly held out the torn fabric from her dress. “It doesn’t always work.”

“Oh.”

“I could teach you. If you like, I mean. If you feel comfortable with trusting me.”

“My eye is swollen shut, I’ve got a massive bruise on my face, and you’re asking me to dance? There’s a first.” Keith thought about that for a moment. “Sure.”

Allura held her hand out, and after a tick of hesitation, he took it. Allura put one of his hands on her waist and put her hand also on his waist.

“Um. Wait. Shouldn’t your hand be on my shoulder?”

“No. Why?”

Keith shrugged. “On Earth, the guy leads a girl, and her hand is on his shoulder.”

Allura laughed. “Altean partnerships are about equality. We do not have one leader. We both lead each other. The stronger of a pair will often take certain parts of a dance simply because they require a physical strength, but we do not have leaders and followers. For this dance, though, because I am teaching it to you, you will have to follow. Let me lead you.”

Allura began the dance to the steady hum of the Castle, and Keith went along with it, his movements stiff and awkward.

“I’m not a dancer,” he admitted.

“Really? I’m shocked.”

“Hilarious.”

Left, right. Allura spun, releasing Keith’s waist. Then she spun him. He looked startled, and stumbled as she spun back in to him and twisted him so that they were holding each other’s waists again. Right, right, left.

Allura put her hands on Keith’s waist, lifted him into the air, and threw him. He yelped in surprise and twisted in the air, coming down awkwardly. Allura couldn’t catch him at the angle he’d put himself in, and he landed on her, pinning her to the floor.

“Sorry!”

Allura squirmed underneath Keith. “Ack—I suppose I should have warned you about the throw.”

They tried to get up, but Keith’s foot got caught in her dress, and he fell again, his hand grabbing for something to hold onto and getting caught in her hair. Allura yelped as her hair was tugged and she fell on top of Keith. His hand was still tangled in her hair.

“Sorry, sorry,” he apologized, trying to free his hand.

Allura yelped as he tugged on her hair, struggling to twist away from him and ending up with her hand planted on his stomach and one knee on his chest, trying to push herself up but only getting dragged back down as her hair was pulled.

“Ack! Get your hand out of my hair!”

“I’m _trying_! Hold still!”

Keith pulled strands of her hair away as he wriggled his hand away and Allura yelped again.

“You’re pulling!”

“I’m sorry, but your hair is really thick and curly!” Keith finally detangled his hand from her hair. “Okay, now get off of my chest, I can’t breathe!”

Allura slid her knee off of his chest, and he made a squeaky, wheezing noise as her hand pushed down on his stomach. Allura looked at where her hand was and realized that her hand had landed directly on top of his scars, which were bumpy under her own smooth skin. Keith apparently realized it too, because he sat up, pushing her away and tugging his shirt back down.

“I’m sorry,” Allura gasped.

“It’s fine.” But Keith was drawing back into himself, putting up walls and shutting the doors that he’d opened for her.

“Keith…”

“It’s late, Princess. We should both get to bed.”

“Keith, I didn’t mean to touch them, I know you don’t like talking about them, please, I’m sorry.”

“I said it was fine.”

“Then why do you want to go? Why do you want to stop talking with me?”

Keith started for the door. “I’m tired, Princess. That’s all.”

Allura grabbed his arm, holding on tightly. “But Keith—”

“Princess, don’t you think that a black eye is enough hurt for one night?”

Allura looked down and saw that she was gripping Keith so tightly that his arm was bruising. She let him go. “I’m sorry, I forget my own strength and how much softer humans are—not that you’re weak, just that Alteans… oh, dear.”

“It’s fine, Princess.” Keith rubbed his arm. “I hope you can sleep.”

“Keith, really, I want to help you, just—”

“I think you’ve done enough ‘helping’ for one night.” Keith left, and Allura let him go.

Allura watched the door hiss shut and a lump rose in her throat.

“What am I doing wrong?” she whispered, “I just want to know…” she sniffed. Hunk and Lance were both so trusting and open with her, and Shiro was too, mostly. Pidge didn’t always reveal her secrets, but she didn’t pull away like this, and act like wanting to know was a bad thing. Why was Keith so cut off from her? Why did it feel like out of all of the paladins, he was the only one she couldn’t talk to?

They’d been fine. They’d been talking. Allura had felt good, and she thought that maybe Keith had felt better as well. She hadn’t thought that just accidentally touching his scars would make him hate her.

She looked around the infirmary for her shoes and realized that Keith had left his boots in his hurry to leave. Allura brushed the tears from her eyes and picked them up, padding quietly down the hallway to Keith’s room. She opened the door, and was met with soft breathing.

“Keith?” she whispered, “Are you awake?”

There was no answer, but Allura could tell that he wasn’t sleeping.

“You left your boots,” she continued, setting them down near the bed. “I’m sorry. Again. I know it’s not fine, and you’re just saying that it is, and I want you to know that I really am sorry for putting my hand on your scars. It truly was an accident, and I hope you can forgive me.”

Allura blew out a long breath.

“I know you don’t want to talk about what happened on Earth, and I can respect that. I know that you’ve been hurt badly, and you’re pushing away everyone who can help because you’re scared that they’ll hurt you to. And I just want to tell you that if you let me in, I won’t hurt you. I’m sure you’ve heard that before, and you don’t trust anyone who says it, but I mean it. I want you to be able to trust me, but it’s okay if you don’t yet. I understand. But I’m here if you need me. And Shiro is, too. And—well, all of the paladins. Even Lance.”

No reply. Allura sighed and turned to go. When she reached the door, she looked in one last time.

“Goodnight, Keith,” she whispered, “I hope your nightmares do not return.”

She closed the door behind her and leaned against it with a sigh. She needed to give him space. Let him come to her instead of pushing him all of the time.

Pidge had said that she might be able to find out what had happened on Earth, and Allura briefly entertained the notion of asking her to do so, but quickly discarded the idea. Pidge had looked absolutely terrified at the prospect, and Allura didn’t want to go behind Keith’s back. If she wanted him to trust her, she needed to be trustworthy.

Allura rubbed her forehead with another sigh. She wished she’d never seen those scars.

With a yawn, she padded back down the hallway to the infirmary to get her shoes and go to bed.

Had she stayed, she would have heard movement.

Had she stayed just a little longer, she would have heard a voice speaking.

Had she delayed and leaned against the door just a little longer, she would have heard it.

“Goodnight, Princess.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can take this as your ship if you ship it, but on record it is intended to be 100% platonic.


	3. Some Scars Still Hurt

Allura strode into the dining hall, where Hunk was waiting with breakfast plates.

“Pancakes!”

Allura accepted her plate. “Thank you, Hunk. This looks delicious.”

The other paladins wandered in, Keith in the back, and when Lance saw him, he did a double take.

“Holy crow, what happened to your _face_?!”

Keith took his plate from Hunk and went to sit down at the table, far away from Allura. “Good morning to you, too.”

Lance winced. “Yikes, who popped you?”

The corners of Keith’s mouth twitched upwards. “Allura.”

Allura dropped her fork with a clatter on the plate, and Lance whirled around to look at her.

“You popped Keith in the face?”

“More accurately, her shoe did.”

“You _kicked_ Keith in the face?!”

Allura felt her face heat up and was incredibly grateful that it didn’t turn red like Keith’s could. “I—I thought he was an intruder. And I threw a shoe at him.”

Lance whistled. “I think you got him.”

Allura’s face was warm enough to cook pancakes on by now. “I thought a Galra had gotten on board.” She decided not to mention the glowing eyes. Bad enough they’d think her paranoid and aggressive. She didn’t want them to think her crazy as well.

Shiro examined Keith’s eye. “Can you see out of it?”

Keith shrugged. “Fairly well. Don’t worry. Training won’t be a problem.”

Training was a problem. Allura watched as Keith faced a gladiator bot. He’d reached a level where they were semi-intelligent and aware of their suroundings, and it kept getting in his blind spot, where his swollen eye would normally see. Keith was doing a fairly good job keeping it at bay, but because of where it kept standing, he was having trouble hitting it back.

The bot connected solidly with Keith’s helmet, and Allura called it off, striding across the deck to where Keith was lying, dazed.

Allura offered him a hand up. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” Keith got up by himself, avoiding her hand. “Just couldn’t see it. I should work on honing my other senses so that I can fight even when I can’t see.”

“How is your eye feeling?”

“Like a high-velocity shoe hit it last night.”

Keith stood off to the side in clear dismissal, waiting for the next round. But the next round never came, because Coran came in with news that they’d been hailed by a nearby planet. The planet was free of Galra activity and wanted to join the fight, but wanted to meet Voltron first. Half of a vargas later, the paladins were in their lions and going down towards the surface of the planet. Allura and Coran followed in a pod. They were greeted by a crowd of humanoids covered in feathers, huge wings protruding from their shoulder blades that they flapped in greeting, creating a strong wind. A singular leader came forward, bowing deeply to the paladins.

“Welcome, Voltron! I am Et’ap, the current elected leader of our planet. We are happy to have you here and to join you in your fight.”

Allura curtseyed. “We will be lucky to have you.”

They were ushered into a large building that looked like a mixture of a lab and a factory. Et’ap beamed.

“Here we are manufacturing weapons to fight the Galra. Many are standard laser guns, of course, but we’re trying to find other options, weapons that will be more effective specifically for the Galra.”

“What does this one do?” Lance asked, gesturing to a slim rifle.

Et’ap took it off of its table, handing it to Lance, who squinted through the sights. “You have a good eye, blue paladin. This was manufactured to fight against those Galra with their so-called ‘upgrades’. It’s on safety, but just in case…” Et’ap gently pushed the muzzle away from where it was aimed at Shiro. “Try not to point it at the black paladin. This weapon reawakens scar tissue, makes it feel like it did when it was freshly wounded.”

Allura frowned. “Doesn’t that seem… inhumane to you?”

Et’ap shrugged. “Isn’t blowing up a ship and leaving the crew to either die in the vacuum of space or live with horrible disfigurement? And yet, every time Voltron fights, that is exactly what happens. This is a war, and we must defend ourselves however we can.”

While Et’ap was talking, Lance had swung the gun around to point at Keith, clearly not listening to the birdlike alien anymore. “Pow, pow, Keith.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “Don’t point that thing at me.”

“You heard him, it’s on safety. Relax.” Lance pulled the trigger to prove it, and a blast of energy shot out, hitting Keith square in the chest. Keith staggered back into the wall and fell to his knees with a groan. The gun clattered out of Lance’s hand onto the floor.

Allura put a hand to her mouth as Shiro rushed towards Keith, now curled in a ball, moaning.

“Keith? Keith, can you hear me?”

Keith nodded, eyes shut tight. He shuddered, and then screamed, breaking into a sob.

“It was an accident!” Lance pleaded, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, I thought it wouldn’t shoot!”

“You said it was on safety,” Allura accused Et’ap.

“It was! It must have gotten bumped!”

“Don’t you have a way to fix this?”

“It wears off in a few hours.”

Keith screamed again, clawing at his own arms.

“He can’t go through this for a few hours!”

“We can sedate him, but that’s about it.”

At the word ‘sedate’, Keith’s eyes shot open. “No!” he choked.

Shiro held Keith’s wrists, keeping him from clawing at himself, no matter how he kept struggling and writhing. “Keith, please, Keith, hold on, I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

“There’s got to be something you can do!” Allura pleaded.

“Well—I—let’s see—we can numb the individual scars.”

Shiro looked up from Keith, his eyes desperate. “Do it!”

Et’ap ran off, and Shiro pulled Keith’s armor off, rolling up his sleeves to reveal the burn scars that stretched over Keith’s hands and arms. Keith struggled to claw at his arms, but Shiro pinioned his arms to his sides as Et’ap rubbed a numbing solution on the burn scars.

Pidge moved suddenly, moving hair from the back of Keith’s neck to show a scar shaped like a ring. “Here.”

“I’m sorry, Keith,” Allura apologized, and tugged his flight suit away from his upper body, revealing the thin scars on his stomach as well as ones she’d never seen before on his chest. The other paladins stared at them in shock.

Keith struggled to get away as Allura reached for his scars with the number, his eyes frantic, terrified.

“No! No, don’t touch me, get away, please, get away, don’t hurt me please—”

Allura applied the number even as Keith wrenched at Shiro’s grasp. He started crying, eyes filled with pain and tears. Hunk, Allura, Lance and Et’ap turned and moved away to give him some privacy, while Shiro and Pidge soothed him quietly.

Et’ap gestured for Allura to come with him and they stood outside in the hallway. “So, then,” he said quietly, “Have you told the other paladins what you’ve done? I’m assuming the green paladin helped you with it based on her knowledge of that scar on the back of his neck, but do the others know?”

“Know what?”

Et’ap gave her an amused smile. “Come now. I understand why you’d want to keep it a secret, but there’s no chance you can hide it from me. I saw the red paladin’s eye.”

“That… that was an accident.”

“And so was the bruise on his arm that was exactly the right size to have been made by your hand? I understand. He’s half Galra. You’re Altean. You’ve got a grudge. I can’t say that I approve, but I understand where you might be tempted to take revenge.”

Allura drew herself up to her full height, changing her height just a little to make herself a bit taller. “I am not _abusing_ my paladins, and the fact that you would insinuate such a thing-!”

“Ah, Princess, I understand that you want to hide his origins, but there’s no reason to lie. That circular scar on the back of his neck—you had him continuously sedated, did you? And the scars on his abdomen—well.”

Allura’s curiosity overcame her anger. “What about them?”

Et’ap regarded her with surprise in his eyes. “You really don’t know, do you? I assumed it was you, since you knew where the scars were, but it appears you really have no idea. You’ve had him with you and yet… well.”

“You know how they got there?”

“Well, yes, I do, although I’m surprised you don’t. You’re an Altean, a person of science. Those are surgery scars—those lines are a near match to the lines cut on a cadaver.”

“A dead body? For dissection? You mean—”

“Someone tore your red paladin apart and put him back together again. I hold nothing against half-breeds. They can’t help their parents. But there are some that will take out their rage or curiosity out on the poor creatures. And it looks as though that happened to yours. How could you not know?”

Allura felt tears begin to bloom in her eyes. “He never said. I knew something had happened to him, back on his home planet, but I never thought… you’re sure?”

“Positive. Now, maybe he needed surgery. Maybe he had a stomach problem. But the likelihood that a fit young man needed surgery on his stomach _and_ his heart is unlikely. And _some_ kind of device was attached to the back of his head. Those are just the facts.”

Allura pushed back into the room. Keith’s eyes were closed, and Shiro was cradling him gently in his arms. “Passed out,” he said hoarsely to Allura, “Pain was too much. I think the number set in, though. He was twitching when he first passed out, but not so much anymore.”

Lance looked at Allura, his face full of guilt. “I’m sorry. I was messing around, I didn’t think…”

“Lance. I know it was an accident, and I know you would never have shot your fellow paladin on purpose. You don’t need to apologize to me. Save your apologies for Keith.”

“We need to go back to the Castle,” Pidge announced to Et’ap, “I’m sorry, your lab is fascinating, and I’d love to learn more, but we need our red paladin to recover.”

Et’ap nodded. “It is for the best. I hope that despite this mishap our alliance will still be possible?”

Allura gave her best diplomacy smile. “You will have the support of the Voltron Coalition. And, I hope, we will have yours.”

He nodded. “Of course. I will ensure your privacy as you bring the red paladin back to your castle. I hope he recovers quickly.”

Allura gave a nod of her own, and the paladins followed her back out to the lions, Shiro in the back, carrying Keith. They were silent as they headed back to the Castle, no one sure what to say.

The paladins collectively decided that they would have something called a “sleepover” in the common room, and they nestled Keith on a couch and wrapped him in blankets. Lance explained to Allura that they were all going to get blankets and pillows and sleep on the ground and couches, which seemed strange to Allura, but the paladins seemed to think it would be fun and promote team bonding.

Hunk came from the kitchen with snacks and something that he called “space hot chocolate, except there’s no chocolate, it just kinda tastes nice, and it’s hot, so, yeah.”

Allura accepted her cup gratefully. It wasn’t juneberry tea, but it did soothe her nerves, and she sipped it carefully. A steaming cup was set aside for Keith, and then the others all started to talk, about anything and everything except what had happened. After a while, Allura felt like something was watching her, and she looked up to see that Keith was awake, quietly watching them all while swathed in his blankets, curled up on the couch.

After she noticed, everyone seemed to notice as well, and they swarmed Keith, demanding to know if he was alright. Hunk pushed Keith’s cup of space hot chocolate into his hands, and Keith looked down into it, carefully avoiding everyone’s eyes, _especially_ Allura’s eyes.

Lance shuffled forward. “Um. I—I’m sorry. I really, really, _really_ didn’t think that it would shoot, and I’m sorry, and…” he gulped. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pointed it at you, and I’m sorry you got hurt because of me.”

Keith gave a short nod, and Lance backed off. Allura could see tears in his eyes and sympathy for the blue paladin welled in her chest. He’d been really, _really_ frightened by what had happened to Keith. If Allura was being honest, _she’d_ been frightened as well. One blast and Keith had been a gibbering wreck in so much pain he couldn’t see straight. She’d never thought that she’d see Keith cry. Lance was blaming himself, since he’d been the one to put Keith in that position, even if it _was_ an accident.

Keith stood up, startling them all, and started walking towards the door.

“Hey, aren’t you going to stay?” Hunk asked.

“I’m tired,” Keith told him, and he _did_ sound tired, “I’m going to bed.”

“But… we were going to…” Hunk trailed off helplessly.

Keith gave the yellow paladin a brief, exhausted smile. “Maybe some other time, Hunk.”

Shiro stood up, too. “Do you want me to come with you?”

“No. Thanks, Shiro, but I want to be alone for a bit.”

He slipped off. When all of the paladins seemed absorbed enough in their conversation that they wouldn’t notice her, Allura crept away and snuck out the door.

“Keith! Wait!”

He stopped and obligingly waited for her, giving her a short nod. “Princess.”

“Keith—today, what happened—I’m sorry. It was horrible.”

“You don’t need to be sorry. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.”

“I’m sorry about exposing your scars. I know you don’t like people seeing them.”

Keith shifted from one foot to another, as if he’d like to walk away from this conversation. “You did what was necessary, Princess.”

“Keith—I was talking to Et’ap. He thought that I might have done something to you.”

“You haven’t. The shoe to the face was an accident.”

“I know, but he thought I had. He thought that because I knew where the scars were, I’d done something horrible to you. And he told me exactly what he thought I might have done.”

There it was. Keith tensed, his hand curling into a fist.

“He thought—He thought I might have tried to dissect you. He said the scars looked like surgery scars. Keith, is that what Sanda did to you? Did she… dissect you?”

Keith’s legs wobbled, and he fell. Allura caught his arms, lowering him gently to the ground and kneeling next to him. He sat with his arms resting on his knees, staring into the distance.

“Keith?”

Keith let out a long, steady breath. “It wasn’t… quite like that. I don’t think she could have done that without killing me. Maybe that’s possible for Alteans, but humans haven’t reached that point in technology and surgery just yet.”

“But she…”

“Cut me open, yeah.” Keith was carefully not looking at Allura, his jaw clenched as he stared at the wall opposite them. “Not her personally. A doctor. Dr. Chris.”

It hit Allura like a sledgehammer. “Oh! The one you saw instead of Coran when the Yemae stung you!”

“Yeah. Him. He was kind of… well, he was an order-follower. She ordered him to cut me open, and he did. They, um, they wanted to see what made up my organs. If it was like what made up another human’s organs. Because I wasn’t completely human. So. Yeah. They took samples of tissue to analyze. It… yeah.” He rubbed his nose. “Stuck a probe into my brain to get some of that. I… so. Yeah. Now you know. Happy?”

Allura reached out tentatively, not sure if she should touch him or not. Her hand touched his shoulder, and he didn’t move away, so she gave it a gentle squeeze, careful not to squeeze too hard. “I’m sorry, Keith. I shouldn’t have pried into it.”

His shoulder started to shake under her hand, and finally he looked at her, his eyes pleading desperate. “I just felt so… violated, when I woke up and found out what they’d done, you know? I woke up, and I found out that they’d put me on a table and cut me open while I was helpless and unconscious, and they’d _poked around_ inside of me, and stuck scissors and probes and pins into me and who knows what else, and they… they just…” He buried his head in his arms. “They just…”

Allura wrapped an arm around his shoulders, rubbing his arm. “They hurt you,” she said softly, “Badly.”

Keith looked up, his eyes red. “And I—I never knew if they’d try to do it again,” he choked, “They tied me down, forced an anesthetic mask over my face and—I just felt so _helpless_ and _scared_ , and they didn’t care, they barely even cared when I accidentally ripped stitches out, and I know that they cut into my chest, too, and they touched my _heart_. I could have _died_. They… It just felt so _wrong_.”

Keith started to cry, obviously trying to hold it back but failing, and Allura hugged him tightly to her. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, tears rising in her own eyes, “I am so, so sorry that anyone would do this to you.”

Keith gulped back tears, still crying into Allura’s shoulder. “I didn’t tell Shiro, because… I’m already putting so much on him, with my nightmares and everything, and I didn’t want to put this on him, too. But I just… I look in the mirror, and I see the scars and I feel so _dirty_ and _wrong_. And I feel like if anyone sees them, they’ll just—they’ll _know_ what happened, somehow, and they’ll… they’ll look at me like Sanda did. Like I was just an animal.” He sniffed, trying to pull away from her. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to tell you all of this, I didn’t mean—”

Allura pulled him in tighter, tears still flowing from her eyes. “No. No, don’t apologize for what happened to you, Keith. _Never_ apologize for that. You’re not an animal, you’re not dirty, you’re not wrong, you’re a paladin, and you’re Keith. You haven’t done _anything_ wrong. They… They did something horrible to you. They hurt you so, so badly, and they’ve made you pay for what they’ve done ever since. _They’re_ the ones who should be apologizing. Not you.” She let him go, holding him by the shoulders. “Understand?”

He smiled weakly at her. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good.”

“Um—Allura?”

“Yes?”

“I think—I think I want them to know. The other paladins, I mean. At some point. Not yet. But I—I’m not sure that I’ll be able to tell them. And. Um. So. Would you… when the time comes…”

Allura nodded solemnly. “I will, if you can’t. I promise. And I promise that they won’t stop liking you because of what happened. They’ll still be your team.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

Allura stood up, offering him a hand. “I need to go back, before they miss me. Will you be alright on your own?”

Keith took the hand and hauled himself up, still shaky. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I can handle it. Thank you, Allura. For listening. And for… for not looking at me weird.”

“Keith, I will never look at you strangely. Not for this. You can trust me.”

He smiled, and she strode down the hallway, back to the other paladins. As she opened the door to where the other paladins were making a ruckus, hitting each other with pillows and generally yelling a lot, she heard Keith’s voice carry down the hallway, quiet and sure.

“I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Making my way downtown/ through Keith's trauma/ which I gave him. *piano music*


End file.
